Christian Brothers High School

The brothers came to Memphis because of a fire. Four De La Salle Christian Brothers moved after some of the order's schools were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, and the school opened that November on Adams Avenue, serving pupils from elementary grades through college. In 1915 the brothers suspended college classes because most men of that age had enlisted, and they did so again in the early 1940s. Elementary teaching ended in 1922. Jesse Turner Jr. graduated as co-salutatorian in 1967. The Walnut Grove campus covers 31.5 acres.

What the plaque says

Christian Brothers High School / Christian Brothers Band Christian Brothers High School: Christian Brothers High School, the oldest high school for boys in Memphis, opened November 21, 1871 as the secondary department of Christian Brothers College at 612 Adams Avenue. CBC was established by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a Roman Catholic religious teaching order founded in 1681 in France. The school survived three yellow fever epidemics of the 1870s. Alumnus Malcolm Rice Patterson was the first native Memphian elected governor of Tennessee, serving from 1902 to 1911. In 1940 CBC moved to 650 East Parkway South. In 1948, Mayor Watkins Overton saluted CBC as a "Temple of Tolerance," welcoming Catholic, Jewish and Protestant students. The first African-American student, Jesse Hosea Turner, Jr., was admitted in 1962. He enrolled in 1963, yielding the first racially diverse high school student body in Memphis. The high school moved to 5900 Walnut Grove Road in 1965 under separate charter from the college. Christian Brothers Band: The Christian Brothers Band of Memphis is the oldest high school band in America. Br. Maurelian organized the band in 1872 and served as its first director. The band has performed for many important functions over the years, including the 1876 dedication of the Hebe Fountain in Court Square; a visit by President Grover Cleveland in 1887; aboard steamboat Kate Adams for dedication of the first railroad bridge across the lower Mississippi in 1892, a 1900 parade honoring Admiral George Dewey; so many Cotton Carnival parades that the band was recognized as the official band of that civic endeavor; the dedication of St. Jude Children's Hospital in 1962; a 1967 rally for Richard Nixon, who later was elected President; and concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center during 2009. Prominent band alumni include Sun Records recording artist, arranger, and film composer Bill Justis.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Elmwood Cemetery — 9.4 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.
• Stax Museum of American Soul Music — 9.6 mi
  A rebuilt Stax studio on the site of the old Capitol Theatre, with a replica of the sloped-floor Studio A, Isaac Hayes's Cadillac and the story of an integrated soul label.
• Sun Studio — 9.9 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 11 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.

More markers nearby

• St. Mary's Episcopal School — 2.6 mi
• Nashoba — 2.8 mi
• Tragic Accident Sparks Sanitation Strike — 3.5 mi
• The University of Memphis — 4.4 mi